Interactive media pioneer Chris Jennewein, who was tapped by Greenspun Interactive to increase traffic to LasVegasSun.com, has left the company and returned to his home base (and family) in San Diego.

During his 10 months in Las Vegas as the site’s publisher, Jennewein says he tripled traffic to the site and produced double digit revenue growth “but the recession made it impossible to continue to invest in the business at the level planned.”

Greenspun had spent heavily on building up its new media offerings in Vegas, but the city, one of the high-flyers before the crash, was hit particularly hard.

Jennewein has been involved in interactive media since the days of BBS systems and audiotex. He started in the early 1990s with an audiotex system at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and later worked for Knight Ridder New Media / Knight Ridder Digital and for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He plans to consult for a variety of companies, including The San Diego News Network, which is seeking to build an alternative news model to newspapers via a hyperlocal site that is syndicated to local media sources, such as cable TV. His resume is here.